Bedside, emergency room, ICU and routine patient examination require user-friendly instrumentation. A portable time resolved spectrometer is proposed here for the purpose of measuring absorption and scattering co-efficients in subject tissue. The device employs principles and approximates the performance of much larger time resolved systems. The design represents a more efficient and effective configuration for directly determining the absorption and scattering ua and us components of tissue, particularly brain. These coefficients will be useful in determining properties of the tissue, both structural and molecular. The instrument will afford a direct readout of scattering components via computer-fitting software. This programming would operate according to the diffusion equation and correct for the instrument function as well. This applies for other highly scattering organs and even non-biological materials as well. Typical time resolved spectroscopic instrumentation is characteristically cumbersome and bulky. The proposed approach would incorporate novel light pulsar and detector designs.